


Endless Knot

by Minutia_R



Category: Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Multi, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I had been on a walk with Flavian, when Bernard and I were both new.  We had run into a salamander, and it had ended with me needing sixteen stitches and Bernard unable to sit down for a week.  Christopher did warn me—"I shouldn't go if I were you, Hester; hiking is not one of the mandatory subjects"—but I'd trusted my previous experiences with teachers more than I'd trusted Christopher; and besides, my name isn't Hester.</i></p><p>Christopher and the young enchanters go to the circus.  Conrad and Flavian go for a walk in the forest.  Things go very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Henrietta

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal gratitude to my excellent betas, murmbeetle and James. The story you're reading is a better story than the one I set them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is narrated by Henrietta, who if she's not an original character might as well be, since all we know about her from canon is a) her name and b) that she was a student at the castle at the same time as Christopher and Conrad. I hope you like her.

"If anything happens to Conrad," said Elizabeth, "I will hold you personally responsible."

"I told him not to go on a walk with Flavian," said Christopher.

"Yes, and that's why he went," said Elizabeth. "If only you'd learn to keep your mouth shut . . . ."

Bernard laughed. "Small chance of that," he said. "Anyway, why shouldn't Conrad take a walk with Flavian? The rest of us had to, at one time or another. It's practically a rite of passage."

It was true. I had been on that walk with Flavian, when Bernard and I were both new. We had run into a salamander, and it had ended with me needing sixteen stitches and Bernard unable to sit down for a week. Christopher did warn me—"I shouldn't go if I were you, Hester; hiking is not one of the mandatory subjects"—but I'd trusted my previous experiences with teachers more than I'd trusted Christopher; and besides, my name isn't Hester. It wasn't always Henrietta, either. Most people are born with their names, and some people choose them—like Millie—and some have new names thrust upon them. That's me.

"It's just too bad Conrad is missing the travelling show," I said. "It won't be the same without him." I liked Conrad. He was from another world, and had only been at the castle for three weeks, and could barely do any magic. When he was around, _he_ was the one who was wrong-footed and strange.

"That's what I _told_ him," said Christopher.

But there wouldn't be any lessons until Monday, and we'd managed to leave the castle for once without being saddled with a chaperone, and without anyone being confined to the grounds for some wrongdoing or other. Elizabeth wanted to see the acrobats, and Jason wanted to see the menagerie, and Bernard had heard that they actually battered chocolate bars and fried them. Christopher acted like he didn't care, but he kept forgetting not to smile.

I could hear the show before I saw it, brass and drums and laughter and the murmur of crowds. Half the village was there, and good parts of two or three of the other villages around besides, milling about between the long striped tents. I could smell it, too, and I wrinkled my nose—there was a menagerie around here somewhere. Bernard's nose, more helpfully, led him to a cart where a man was selling all sorts of things, battered and fried. So we all had deep-fried chocolate bars. Christopher somehow ate his neatly, but soon Bernard, Elizabeth, Jason and I were all sticky, smeared with chocolate, and sugar-stupid.

A sign next to the entrance of one of the tents invited passers-by to "MARVEL at MASTER DODD'S collected FREAKS of NATURE." On display, the sign promised, were the Siamese twins, the ugliest man on earth, the tattooed lady, Tom Thumb, and the mermaid.

Elizabeth went all gooey and wanted to see the mermaid. Christopher said it wasn't a mermaid, there weren't any in this series, it was just a woman wearing a stitched-together tail and not much else. Jason said maybe she came from a different series, like Millie and Conrad. Bernard leered and wanted to know what was wrong with a woman wearing not much. Elizabeth frostily said she didn't want to see the mermaid after all.

That made it two to two. They turned to me, and I shrugged and said no. Christopher looked smug and Elizabeth looked righteous; Jason looked like a disappointed puppy and Bernard looked angry and betrayed—the two of us were usually allies of a sort, maybe because we came to the castle at the same time. It was the opposite result to what I would have wanted, but the thought of staring at people in boxes somehow sent prickles all up my neck. I found myself on the wrong side of stares too often—a small, flat-faced, slant-eyed girl in a crowd of bloomingly healthy English children. I mean, I am English. I have papers that say so, with a wax seal and everything. But.

We kept walking, and came to a tent about the size of a bathing hut. Its sign said "Gypsy Fortune-teller MADAME ZENOBIA Sees All and Tells All," followed by a row of mystic symbols. Christopher stopped dead. "Oh," he said. "I think I need to talk to her."

"We can't see a mermaid, but you need to talk to a _Gypsy fortune-teller?_ " Bernard demanded. "If you want some charlatan to foretell doom in your future, you can just wait for your next letter from—"

Elizabeth grabbed his arm. I knew from experience, whenever I was about to make some social misstep, those nails were _sharp._ "If you finish that sentence," said Elizabeth, "I shall call Gabriel."

"You wouldn't," said Bernard.

"I _will_ ," said Elizabeth. "What do you mean by picking a fight with Christopher here; do you have any concept of how flammable ordinary people are—"

Bernard and Elizabeth didn't notice, but the ordinary people at the show were safe from Christopher. He wasn't listening. He had already gone into the fortune-teller's tent. I crept closer to listen, but I couldn't understand the strange, chopped-up language that they were speaking—at least, the fortune-teller was speaking it. Christopher's replies were short and stumbling.

"What are they saying?" Jason hissed in my ear.

I frowned. Jason was no good at sneaky. I didn't answer at first, but I saw that Jason would just repeat his question if I didn't. "Shh," I hissed back. "I don't know."

Just then, I heard something I did understand—the soft rustle of Christopher's clothes as he stood up, and footsteps. I yanked Jason out of the way and pretended I'd been watching a stilt-walker making his way through the crowd.

"What was that about?" said Jason. "Is she really a Gypsy fortune-teller?"

"Of course not. She's an Irish Traveler; it's entirely different," said Christopher. He was walking quickly, towards the edge of the green where the circus' wagons were parked, and the rest of us had to hurry to keep up. "But she really is a sister in the Order of St Ahasuerus, and that means I really do owe her a favor. I travelled with them for a while, you know."

We did know. Or, at least, if this was the first time I'd heard of the Order of St Ahasuerus, we all knew that Christopher had left with the travellers when he'd gone off to find Millie. There was a short, meaning silence. None of us had quite forgiven Christopher for going off to rescue Millie without us.

"What does she want from you?" Elizabeth said finally.

"She has suspicions about this show," said Christopher. "Children have been disappearing, when it passes through a town."

"Kids do run off with the circus," said Jason.

"Yes," said Christopher, "but Madame Zinnia has been with the show for six months, and she says they're not here. There's a thing that the master of the show keeps in his wagon that, as she puts it, stinks, and it's keeping her from sniffing out what's going on. She hasn't been able to lift it, but she thinks that maybe I can."

This was better than mermaids any day, and almost as good as deep-fried chocolate bars. "Which one's Master Dodd's wagon, then?" said Bernard.

"Wait, but look, Christopher," said Elizabeth. "Why do we have to sneak around? If Master Dodd is some kind of monster who eats children, that's Chrestomanci business."

"If it's Chrestomanci business, then it's my legitimate business," said Christopher. "Although, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that to Madame Zephyr. Her _goals_ are basically the same as Gabriel's, but historically the Order hasn't got on well with him, or his predecessors."

Christopher stopped, and so did the rest of us, short of the edge of the crowd. We weren't near enough to the wagons and horses to draw looks from the knot of large men who sat there. "I'm going to need a distraction," he added.

Jason grinned. "Right," he said. "I'll just—"

"Not a magical distraction," said Christopher. "I don't know what we're dealing with here; I'd rather that went both ways."

"The big red wagon," I said. "That's the one you want them to be looking away from, yes?"

"Yes," said Christopher, "but—"

"Right, then," I said. Let the rest of them get started, and they'd talk all day. I walked towards the wagons.

One of the men set down his mug on a barrel, and stood. He had a wide red face and a wide red waistcoat, and he loomed over me like a mountain. "Hey, there, missy," he said. "You can't—"

I kicked him in the right shin, and then in the left one, and turned and sprinted away as he bellowed. I nearly ran into Elizabeth and Bernard. Stupid! Elizabeth had probably followed me to try and stop me from doing what I'd just done. I didn't know why Bernard was there. One look at the red mountain bearing down on us and they ran too.

"Have you gone _mad_?" panted Elizabeth. "That man's four times your size! He could have flattened you!"

"But he didn't," I said. "Most people aren't prepared to be kicked. Especially not by a little Chinese girl." The posh clothes I'd been wearing since I came to the castle didn't hurt, either.

"You're not Chinese," said Bernard, as we ducked between two wagons, heavy footsteps falling close behind us. Trust Bernard to fix on an unimportant detail! But it's not really unimportant to me.

"I know that," I said. "But I don't think he does."

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder. "Anyway, I don't think it's worked," she said. "The rest of them aren't chasing us. They're looking out more sharply than ever."

"Watch," I said. And I must have been spending too much time around Christopher, because I added, "And learn."

We came to a crowd of horses placidly eating their lunch. I skidded to a stop, took a breath, and screamed. I may be small, but when I scream I put my lungs into it. Half of the horses got white around the eyes, and tried to bolt. The rest of them did bolt, pulling up stakes, trampling things in all directions. The water trough was overturned, and the man who'd been chasing us slipped and fell into the mud—not that he was my main worry right now. Bernard had a hand around my arm and he dragged me out of the way of a couple of horses bearing down on us. I didn't see Elizabeth.

And _that_ was the trick that earned me the name Shrieking Hetty on the streets of Liverpool.

I didn't think any of the circus people would have much attention to spare for Christopher now. If he was half as good as my brother David, he would get his stinky thing without a problem—and I don't mean to insult my family's honor but Christopher is twice as good as my brother David. He wasn't going to help me escape from the angry men chasing me, though. That I would have to do myself.

I dashed back into the crowd, Bernard panting behind me. He was too big to duck between the bewildered and shouting villagers the way I did, and he clearly didn't have the wind for this sort of thing. I hadn't _asked_ him to follow me—a man, thinner than our first pursuer but taller, with wicked-looking gnarled hands, made a grab for Bernard as we passed by the battered-and-fried cart. I snatched up the pot of oil, threw it in the man's general direction, got Bernard's hand, and ran for the freak show.

It was a shove and a half to get through the narrow tent, but the men chasing us seemed to be slowing down. I didn't, and I didn't let Bernard. We dashed past the Siamese twins—not Siamese, or even conjoined; I'd bet they weren't even twins—and Tomb Thumb—actually quite small—and out the other side. The parade was passing, and I slipped between two startled elephants and hoped Bernard was behind me. He was, and the large angry men weren't. We more-or-less fell into a patch of shade next to the big tent and sat catching our breath.

"It was just a lady in a stitched-together tail after all," said Bernard. "Not a mermaid."

"Yes," I said. You get used to wrenching conversational turns when you're around Bernard. "Did you enjoy the view?"

I didn't think Bernard could get redder than he'd got from running, but a moment before he'd been rhubarb and now he was a tomato. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "Er, of you. That was amazing."

I don't know what sort of produce I looked like, but I felt very hot. Just meaningless gallantry—except that Bernard is no more gallant than I'm a kangaroo. The idea that clever, obnoxious, posh Bernard was nursing a hopeless admiration of _me_ was stupid, but it did explain some things. Like why he'd rushed after me when I'd gone to make a diversion. And why he was looking at me like saying that was the scariest thing he'd ever done.

I remembered the way his hand had felt on my arm when he'd dragged me out of the way of the horses, and I leaned in towards him. Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do until I do it. I still can't be sure what I was about to do just then, because that's when Elizabeth's voice behind us said, "Ahem."

I couldn't see her, but I should have _known._

"Christopher's got the thingummy," she said. "He says it's safe to use magic now. Come _on_." So Bernard and I went invisible too and followed her back to Madame Zenobia's tent.

It was your standard bigger-on-the-inside-than-the-outside job, full of gauzy curtains and tasseled cushions and Oriental carpets, and smelling of incense. Jason was poking at some odds and ends—a crystal ball, a mummified monkey's paw, a deck of Tarot cards—in a happy Jason way, and Christopher was lounging on some of the cushions in an indolent Christopher way. Sitting in a great wicker chair like a throne was an old lady—not as old as Gabriel, but who is—in bright layers of flouncy skirts and shawls, with a scarf wrapped around her steel-grey hair and big hoops in her ears. If she wasn't a Gypsy, she was doing a good imitation of one.

"There you are," said Jason, as we blinked back into visibility. "Madame Zenobia's been saying—"

"Meg, love," said the not-a-Gypsy. "Madame Zenobia is for the customers."

"Why?" I said.

She laughed. "You wouldn't want your palm read by Meg Reilly, would you?"

"I wouldn't want my palm read at all," said Bernard. "Now, give me a microscope and a spoonful of good Assam and I could tell you how the markets will open on Monday."

"Be that as it may," said Christopher, because nobody wants to let Bernard get started on finance, "we've been trying to work out what this artifact is. It seems to have some connection to—"

There, on a velvet tablecloth on a rickety folding table, was something I never thought I'd see in England, outside my mother's kitchen. Two sticks, arranged in a cross, and woven through with silk thread; a shifting square of blue and green, red, white and yellow that fascinated the eye. "It's an endless knot," I said.

"Don't look at it," said Meg sharply.

I wrenched my eyes away. I didn't understand, but I'd run with my brother's gang and I'm an enchantress; I know how to listen first and ask questions second. What you don't understand can cut you just as sharp.

"Why not?" I said. "They're good luck."

"Good luck for who?" said Meg. "Good luck for Master Dodd would be bad luck for you, I'm thinking."

That name, on top of the knot like that, jostled something loose from my memory. I still didn't understand, but I was beginning to see the shape of it. "Not Dodd," I said. "Bdud. Demon."

"An endless knot," said Christopher. "What does it do?"

"It's a spirit cage," I said. "It traps demons and evil spirits and things so they can't make trouble in your house. Sometimes people make them as houses for gods, but that's a different sort . . ."

"And children?" said Meg.

I had to try really hard not to look back at the endless knot on the table. "You could make one to trap children," I said.

"Bdud," spat Meg. "Shouldn't be here, in England."

"And I suppose if he were back in Tibet he'd be welcome to ensnare children as much as he liked?" said Elizabeth.

Meg shrugged. "The Order's concerned with balance," she said. "In Tibet, there'd be people who knew what he was, and how to oppose him. Here, there aren't." She turned an unsettling steely gaze on me. "Or are there?"

Not fair, to ask that. "I was six when we left Tibet," I said. "And this . . . this is priest's work."

"Huh," said Meg, and turned back to Christopher. No slaps like David, or gentle encouragement like Flavian, or sarcasm like Gabriel. So either you were good enough, or you weren't worth her time? It nettled.

"To exorcise a demon," I said, "you need an endless knot to trap it—we've got that—and a phur ba, I guess you'd call it a ritual dagger, to fix it in place. I haven't got one of those." My grandfather's phur ba, made of meteoric iron and carved with three faces of Dorje Phurba, was long gone. Probably fallen into the hands of the lamas and melted down for scrap.

"Haven't you?" said Meg. "Look around yourself. What do you see, that you can't see past?"

Bernard did a cryptic crossword every Sunday. Christopher and Elizabeth and, lately, Conrad, would help him with it, calling out suggestions, puzzling over clues. Not me. "I hate riddles," I said.

"The whole theory doesn't make sense," said Bernard. "If this thing is a trap, it should have been put somewhere where someone could fall into it. What it _was_ doing was stopping Meg from spying on Master Dodd. Protects the house from intruders, right?"

"Master's knot, master knot," said Christopher. "Those connections we found . . ."

"They might lead to other knots," said Jason, "which are where kids can find them."

"Or were," said Elizabeth grimly. She closed her eyes and put her hands over the endless knot, and started teasing strings loose. The shape of the physical object didn't change. These were strings of magic: blue, green, red, white, yellow. "There's five. Isn't that lucky."

"We'll find them," Christopher said. "Give us each a string."

Christopher took blue, for space, and Bernard took red, for fire. Jason took yellow, for earth, and Elizabeth kept white, for water. I took green, for air, and followed my string invisibly back out into the crowds.

I found the other end of it in the pocket of a small boy—well, not smaller than Jason, actually—chattering to his father about the elephants. I conjured it into my hand, and then—I can't explain what I did next.

I mean, I'm an enchantress, and I'm not feeble-minded. I knew I wasn't supposed to be looking at the knot. But I had never seen anything like those colors.

Then the parade was sweeping by, towards the big tent. The crowd followed, moved along by the insistent drumbeat, humming with excitement, and I moved with them. The show was starting at last! I clutched my treasure, the bright tangle of string, and found a ringside place in the big tent. Something exciting was about to happen.

A small round man in a tall hat stood in the middle of the ring. He raised his hands and the crowd's hum fell to a murmur. "Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages!" he—I don't know why I thought of the word _keened_. "Take your seats beneath the big top, and welcome to Master Dodd's Show of Marvels! I am Master Dodd, at your service, and this is what I offer you: the finest riders, aerialists and acrobats in Europe, the most wonderful beasts, the most daring acts of skill and illusion, the greatest spectacle on Earth! Lend me all your senses, and let the spectacle begin!"

The drums got louder and faster, bells clattered, and from the opposite side of the tent the performers started coming in. Stilt-walkers bobbed, and tumblers turned handsprings; stunt riders leapt from horse to horse, elephants lumbered and bears shambled. Overhead, men in bright leotards swung from trapezes and tossed glittering women back and forth between them. Another aerialist did a frantic, spinning dance on the high wire.

"And now," said Master Dodd, "I'll need five volunteers from the audience. Step up, ladies and gentlemen."

I was on my feet before I knew it, ducking under the barrier to stand in the ring. I was joined by a tall boy with elegant clothes, and a pretty blonde girl, nearly as elegant. Two more boys made their way out of the crowd, one small skinny one with a cheerful grin and one wide, blunt-featured one with disorderly tufts of medium-brown hair and eyebrows. The tall boy looked around himself with a vaguely puzzled frown, and took one of the blonde girl's hands in one of his, and one of the blunt-featured boy's hands in the other. The blunt-featured boy reached for my hand, and I was about to show him what I do to people who touch me without permission, when his fingers grazed mine and I came back to myself with a lurch. Bernard's eyes met mine and I knew he was feeling about the same way.

"You were all completely bewitched," breathed Christopher, too low for anyone but us to hear. "He shouldn't be able to do that."

The spectacle was even more spectacular in its true form. There were no stilt-walkers, but long-legged giants with backwards feet. The aerialists flew on drums, not trapezes, and I do mean _flew_. Glittering birds with women's faces fluttered among them. The bears had claws two feet long, and eyes like the edges of a fire. The elephants' feet shook the ground when they hit, and on their backs dancers with snake's tails entwined and slashed each other with knives. In the middle of it all stood Master Dodd, a small round man in a tall hat, with blue skin and twenty arms and a mouthful of fangs, surrounded by a halo of flames.

"God," whispered Jason, "they're _all_ demons."

They weren't, actually—almost half of the performers were human, and going through their acts like dreamers. I felt a fury take hold in me. _Creatures of illusion, how dare you toy with my mind._

"Do you know what to do, Henrietta?" Christopher whispered.

I didn't. My anger had warmed, but not enlightened me. _Look around yourself_ , Meg Reilly had said. _What do you see that you can't see past?_ I looked past my friends, past the demons, past the mesmerized crowds. But I couldn't look past the walls and roof of the tent. And what's a phur ba but a tent stake?

"There's something I need to get," I hissed. "Can you make an illusion of me for a minute?"

Christopher nodded, and I turned Bernard's hand loose and pushed invisibly through the crowds once more, towards an anchor point of the tent. When I wriggled outside, I admit, it occurred to me that I could keep running. Then I closed my hand around the tent peg, and it was a sort of possession, but not the sort that had muddled my brain when I'd looked at the endless knot. This was—do you know the expression, _self-possessed_? It's more literal than you might think.

When I was back in the ring and facing Master Dodd, I raised my phur ba. Christopher, on the other side, raised the master's endless knot—nobody ever accused Christopher of being slow on the uptake. And I remembered what to say, which I don't think I ever learned in this life.

"Open the golden lock of the north," I said. "Open the silver lock of the east. Open the iron lock of the south. Open the copper lock of the west. The doors must be opened. Open the golden door, the silver door, the iron door, the copper door. Open the doors, we are coming to make the offering."

Then I drove my phur ba into the earth, and the flying demons, the snake demons, the bear and elephant demons all vanished. So did Master Dodd, and so did Christopher.


	2. Conrad

"Try again," said Flavian, so I swallowed my frustration and tried again. This had been my idea. More or less.

I held out my hand. I looked at a leaf on a branch above my head; a wide, rayed thing, brilliant red. I thought of how it would feel, smooth on one side, veined and nubby on the other. I wanted it in my hand, as hard as I could. Nothing.

"Never mind," said Flavian. "We'll try again a bit later, with something else. It isn't good to get stuck on something that isn't working; it makes ruts in the brain."

Only it wasn't one thing I couldn't do, it was everything. Gabriel DeWitt said I was an enchanter, and he should know—but tell that to the bloody leaves.

"Are you sure the trees aren't magical?" I said.

"Well, service berries have some medical uses—but no," said Flavian.

"They look like they ought to be," I said. It's amazing, the colors Twelve trees go in the autumn. And this was the first chance I'd had to see any of the country around since I'd got to Twelve. I like walking, right? But when I agreed to go on a walk with Flavian, the others had given me that horrified look that meant I'd put my foot in it again. I was getting tired of that look. "Is it true Christopher died out here once?"

Flavian looked at me sharply. "Who told you that?" he said.

"Christopher," I admitted. I could have got the whole story out of him, but I figured Flavian's version would be more accurate. "His exact words were, 'Taking a walk with Flavian may actually literally kill you.'"

"That," said Flavian, "is not fair. Or even true. He was dead before he left the castle, and he knew it, even if I didn't. When I think of how terrified I was . . . but that's Christopher for you." He sighed. "And, er—I wanted to talk to you about that, Conrad. About Christopher. And you."

I went still. The things Christopher and I had been doing could get you cornered in the toilets, back at my school in Seven, and beaten hard enough to land you in hospital. On the other hand, there had been that parade in Ludwich last year, and that town councilman who had given a speech and kissed his partner on the stage in front of everyone. An editorial in the paper had praised him for his bravery. My mother had written the other editorial, about unnatural men who weren't satisfied with oppressing women, and wanted to do away with them altogether.

Christopher had said that neither of those things would happen in Twelve, beatings or parades. No one would care. Everyone would pretend not to notice, as long as we didn't make them notice. And then he had done the thing he does, with my ear, and I had forgotten to ask what would happen if we _did_ make them notice. I told myself I was really going to have to stop letting Christopher get round me like that, because now Flavian wasn't following the script, and I didn't know what to say.

Well. Christopher wasn't here. I'd have to figure out this one on my own. "What about Christopher and I?" I said, but Flavian refused to be diverted into correcting my grammar. Too bad; it usually worked with my mother.

"Please don't take this badly," he said. "I do like Christopher. Well, most of the time."

Which was about as often as anyone could reasonably be expected to like Christopher, but I didn't say that to Flavian. Tearing Christopher's character to shreds with Millie was one thing, but this was something else. What exactly it was, I wasn't sure.

"And I know—I don't know what it's like to be from a different world, but I do know what it's like to be new, and to have a friend in a place that's otherwise very confusing," Flavian went on. "And Christopher's been kind, and he can be charming when he wants to be, and he's certainly attractive. But you're letting yourself in for trouble."

"Trouble?" I said. "Are you going to tell Gabriel?" Gabriel used to make Christopher write a hundred lines every time he lost a life. Would he make me write lines for this? _I will not stare at Christopher during Sunday dinner. I will not run my hands through Christopher's hair._

"No, of course not," said Flavian, looking injured. "I meant—I'm sure Christopher doesn't mean any harm. But meaning and doing are two different things. And the thing about charming and attractive people is that they don't always understand that the things that are easy for them aren't so easy for the rest of us. I don't want to see you hurt, Conrad. That's all."

"I'm fine," I said. The first time someone decides they need to protect you because you're alone in the world, it can be kind of sweet. The fiftieth time is just annoying. And I didn't know who Flavian's charming, attractive friend was or what he'd done, but it was hardly fair to blame Christopher for it.

"Well," said Flavian. "Just remember Christopher isn’t your only friend in Twelve. All right?"

"Thanks," I mumbled. Flavian hadn't said in _quite_ so many words that he fancied men, but it was the closest I'd come to hearing it from any adult that I knew. And if Flavian was like me—I was annoyed with him just then, but I knew I could do a lot worse than be like Flavian.

And it's hard to be annoyed on a perfect autumn day when you're walking in a forest, beneath an unreal riot of colors. Leaves crunched underfoot, birdsong I didn't recognize wittered overhead, and there was an earthy smell completely different than the sharp, piney scent of forests at home. I was walking along, taking everything in in an unfocused way, when I saw a flash of bright, electric blue. It might have been a bird, or –for all I know of Twelve—it might have been a burrowing fish, but it didn't move when I approached it.

"What have you found there?" said Flavian.

It was a weaving. I couldn't think what it was doing there, a little off the path. Some other hiker might have dropped it, but it wasn't grubby at all; it made the autumn colors look dull by comparison. Once I had it in my hands, I could see there were other colors in it, too—red and yellow and white and green. The strings of it seemed to hum, like the strings of some musical instrument.

"Conrad?" came Flavian's voice, distant and distorted. "I don't think you should be . . . I think I should get this to Gabriel." His hand closed around the crossbar of the thing I held, and his fingers obscured the pattern, but it didn't make any difference—I already held the pattern in my mind. I was suddenly very cold, and my ears were stuffed up like I'd just taken the fast tram up a mountainside, and Christopher was there.

"Conrad?" said Christopher, vaguely puzzled. "What on earth are you . . . and Flavian . . . ah." He twirled an object between his fingers, a weaving slightly larger and more elaborate than the one Flavian and I were holding. It was kind of pretty, in a folk-art way; my sister might have liked it. I couldn't see what had been so fascinating about it a moment ago. "I see you found one of these," Christopher went on. "Five, _not_ including the Master's knot. Fence post error. "

I had to swallow several times before I could talk without my voice sounding hollow in my ears. "What are you talking about?" I said. "Where are we?"

"N-n-never mind th-that," said Flavian. He was shivering alarmingly. "Let's g-get _out_ of h-here."

"I can't translocate," I said.

"This is why you should apply yourself to your studies more," said Christopher, the howling hypocrite. "Still, between me and Flavian, we should be able to move you. The pentagram at the castle?"

Christopher took my right hand— _not_ a prelude to cuddling, I told myself, even if he did have very nice fingers. Flavian took my left hand in his trembling one. I thought of the pentagram at the castle as hard as I could, in case it would help. It didn't. Finally Christopher sighed. "I'm afraid that Henrietta staked us in place quite firmly," he said.

I still didn't know what he was on about, but despite his even tone I believed the part where he'd said _I'm afraid_. "We've got to call Gabriel," I said.

Christopher nodded, but didn't say anything. There's some things you don't ask Christopher to do. And I doubted Flavian could keep his voice steady enough to get four syllables out. I swallowed again, and said, "Chrestomanci."

Gabriel appeared, indistinctly at first, in all his frowning frock-coated glory. I wondered whether warmth and safety were really worth the telling-off we had ahead of us. Then his image flickered, popped, and went out like a defective light bulb, and I knew the answer was definitely yes.

"Christopher," I said, "what exactly is going on?"

That was when the sky went dark, and I realized that I'd been hearing a sort of rhythmic thrumming since we'd landed here, only now it was loud enough I could feel it in my feet. It wasn't my heartbeat, or a train. And the great huge thing swooping down on us wasn't a bird—it had no head or tail, just a pair of dark wings and a long body, narrow in the middle and wide and flat in front. There were _things_ riding on it, things with green skin and yellow eyes and clattering bells woven through their yellow hair. The thing in front was beating out a tattoo on the flat front end of the flying thing—that was the sound, drumming—and the thing in back was drawing back a bow taller than I was.

Christopher raised his free hand—and I could feel the power of _that_ all along my arm—and the drum and its riders hung frozen in midair where they were. But the drumming didn't stop, and the sky was dark with more than one pair of wings. Christopher turned and ran, dragging me behind him and Flavian behind me, up a bare and rocky slope, into a solid cliff face, and through to a cave on the other side. "We're being hunted," he said.

As an explanation, it lacked something. "Try again," I said. "More words."

Christopher sat against the wall of the cave. He was glowing faintly, or I wouldn't have been able to see anything. I sat next to him, and then changed my mind and got Flavian between us. We were out of the wind, but he was still shivering, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath after our short run. I hoped he wasn't sweating.

"We met a sister of the Order of St Ahasuerus at the circus, and she called in a favor from me, and asked me to steal this from the master of the show," said Christopher, taking the weaving out of his pocket again. "It turns out he was using these to snare children and make them disappear, but we found all of the knots before he could do it again—except for the one you found, obviously. And the whole circus was demons, and Henrietta exorcised them, only she seems to have exorcised us as well. And I think what she said when she did it was an invocation of a ritual hunt."

I was wrong. I hadn't wanted more words. My head hurt.

"What w-was it?" said Flavian, who had clearly been following him better than I had. "The inv-v-vocation?"

"I'm not sure," said Christopher. "It was in Tibetan. But there was something about opening the golden door, the silver door, the iron door, and the copper door."

"Th-that's a h-h-hunt, all r-right," said Flavian. "Do you h-h-happen to r-remember—" his eyes went suddenly vague. If it were Christopher, I'd say he was thinking hard, but I'd never seen Flavian look like that before. "What was I s-s-saying?" he said.

"Do I happen to remember," said Christopher. "Remember what?"

"I d-d-don't remember," said Flavian. He sounded frightened, and no wonder.

"Flavian, what's the matter with you?" said Christopher.

"Hypothermia," I said. "And altitude sickness too, probably. And if he's hypothermic, then so are we, or will be soon. I give us maybe two hours. I suppose you'll freeze to death three times in quick succession." Christopher was staring at me wide-eyed, as if these perfectly obvious facts hadn't occurred to him. "You don't get the hypothermia lecture every winter at school in Twelve, do you."

"No," said Christopher. "No use starting a fire, we haven't got anything to burn—would more clothes help?"

"They'd slow things down, anyway," I said.

"Then we'll try to conjure some from the castle," he said. "We haven't had any luck getting people in and out of here, but blankets aren't people."

I said, "I can't—"

"You're an enchanter," Christopher interrupted, in that bland voice he uses when he's lost all patience. "So conjure. Do you want Flavian to freeze?"

As if I were making up my troubles with magic for my own amusement. As if I were responsible for getting us into this in the first place, when it was Christopher who'd been mucking about with demons and ritual hunts, and I hadn't done anything—except for pick up a strange magical object which should never have been where I found it—and Flavian had been dragged along trying to take it away from me.

I'd say it comes of having an evil fate, but I haven't. More likely it comes of being an idiot. And I didn't want Flavian to freeze, so I held out my hands and I hoped.

"What have you got there?" said Christopher, in an entirely different voice.

I _had_ got something. There was a moment of exhilaration when I realized that I'd actually done it, I'd conjured, and then I turned my mind to Christopher's question. It was a length of some sort of knitting, frayed, grubby, and striped in as many shades of gray as you could imagine. "I don't know," I admitted. "It smells of cat."

Christopher laughed. "Of course it does, Proudfoot had kittens on it last year," he said. "Knitted by a sorceress, claimed by two generations of Asheth Temple cats—a thing like that goes where it wants. How did you know to ask for it?"

"I didn't," I said. "I just hoped—Christopher, it's _warm_."

"It's full of protection spells," said Christopher, starting to wrap it around Flavian's neck. I helped, and after a little bit Flavian was able to do it himself. It went round his neck twice, and crisscrossed his chest and stomach—there seemed to be no end of it. "Dr. Simonson said I'd never need it. You agreed with him, if I recall, Flavian."

"Oh, let him alone, can't you?" I said.

But Flavian just pressed his hands against the scarf, and hugged himself, and said, "Thank you."

"I put a strong don't-notice on this cave," said Christopher, "but as soon as we leave there are going to be demons again. Still, I don't think sitting tight and hoping that Gabriel comes up with something back home is a good plan. I wonder—have you got a compass in that kit of yours, Flavian?"

"I'll get it," I said, starting to dig through Flavian's backpack, since his hands were still shaking. I found one and tossed it to Christopher.

"Good," he said, and started to scoot his way down a tunnel. I could see a glimmer of light at the end of it. I helped Flavian get to his hands and knees, and we followed Christopher. "We can't translocate out of here," he went on, "and Gabriel can't be summoned in, but Henrietta did open the doors. If we can find one of those, we can take it home. I hope." We stepped out into the light and the freezing wind, and Christopher took his bearings. "The silver door of the east isn't going to be much use to me, I'm afraid. And," he added, turning his head towards the distant sound of drums, and where curving lines carved in the mountain face beyond were starting to twist and glint, "I don’t much like our chances with the doors of the north or the west either. The iron door of the south it is, then."

We were already running before the yellow bear-things clawed their way out of the mountain face, which was good, because they were fast. Christopher trailed his hand along a cliff-side as we ran, and brought down a tumble of boulders between us and them. The sky darkened, but not with wings. It was stormclouds, which was almost worse; we'd freeze five times faster if we were wet. I waved a desperate hand above my head, and thought _umbrella_ , and the first drops of sleet hissed against an invisible barrier half a meter above us—and when I say hissed, I mean they turned into snakes longer than my arm, which twisted and lashed at the barrier as they slid off, fangs flashing in their mouths and knives in their . . . hands.

By that point, I fairly suspected that the lightning flashing in the clouds wasn't lightning—but I still yelped when a bird with a face like a woman's and talons like tongues of flame dove shrieking towards us. It wasn't surprise, it was the blazing two-meter wingspan. I felt a sudden hot, wet pain on my shoulder. Another bird tore at Flavian's back; his scarf smoldered and stank worse than ever, but didn't give. Christopher pulled us into the rock face again.

This time I had time to notice that I was actually walking through solid stone, that I couldn't see or breathe, that I was getting dizzy, and that I really hoped Christopher knew what he was doing. In the distance—as far as I could judge distance—I half-heard, half-felt rumblings in the mountain, and realized that the bears who had clawed their way out of the rock had no trouble following us back in, even if the firebirds couldn't.

Then I couldn't feel Christopher's footsteps anymore, and then I couldn't feel Flavian's, and then I popped out myself on another side of the mountain, onto a path hemmed in with cliffs on all sides. "I think we've lost them for a bit," said Christopher. "And the door should be around here somewhere."

"Can't you smell it?" I said. "It's the forest." Rotting leaves and damp earth and blessed warmth; my feet started walking toward it without asking my brain.

And there, carved into the rock face in front of us, was a lintel. Set into the lintel was a pair of doors, three times taller than Flavian, painted bright colors but with the dull gray of iron underneath. The doors stood slightly ajar, not quite enough for me to slip through, letting in a draft of warm air that set my face prickling.

The colors on the door shifted dizzyingly, arranging themselves in geometric patterns one moment, forming into human figures the next. "So that's what Master Dodd's been doing with the children he catches," Christopher breathed.

The twisting lines of color resolved themselves into a shape very distinctly then, a girl maybe ten years old, in braids and a sailor dress and a flat hat with ribbons. "Master Dodd!" she called, with an echoing yell that shook the cliffs all around. "The prey! The prey is here!"


	3. Henrietta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You would not be reading this chapter without James. If you ever meet him, buy him a drink! (Do not buy him an alcoholic drink, unless it is the future where you are.)

"Christopher!" said Elizabeth, and "Bloody hell!" said Jason, and Bernard said, "This can't be good."

No one said, "Henrietta, you thundering great fool, what did you do?" I was thinking it, though, and I'd bet the others were, too.

But I didn't have time to think it for long. The human circus performers were beginning to come out of their dazes, and the audience was muttering angrily, and the four of us were awfully exposed in the center of the ring.

Elizabeth went invisible. "Come on," she said.

"But—" said Jason.

"Can you think of anything we can do for Christopher right now?" said Elizabeth.

"No," said Bernard, "but I can think of someone who might."

That settled it. The rest of us followed Elizabeth, slipping invisibly through the seats. She didn't try to lead us through the press at the entrance, which was for the best, but the exit she tore for us in the wall of the tent was just about opposite the stake I'd taken out. I was wasting my worry on that when Bernard had to drag me out of the way of a horse for the second time that day.

"Haven't they rounded those things up yet?" I hissed, feeling flustered and stupid.

"They're a little short-handed," Elizabeth pointed out. "Half the circus is missing."

More than that was missing, we found when we got to Meg's tent—or when we should have got to Meg's tent. There wasn't even a square of flattened grass or the holes of tent pegs to show where it had been. We looked at Jason, in case Elizabeth had got turned around and led us to the wrong place.

"It was here," he said. And if Jason said it had been there, it had been _there_. "Maybe . . . maybe she left because her job was done, and she didn't realize . . ."

"Or maybe she set us up," I said.

"Not us," said Bernard. "Christopher."

Maybe. Christopher was the one who'd owed her a favor. She'd asked him to steal the endless knot—and he was gone, while the rest of us were here, whole, and unhurt. But I'd held the phur ba and said the words that had sent him God-knows-where. I took it personally.

"There she is!" someone shouted, and I took that personally too, because he was pointing at me. I looked down at myself. I was still invisible. How could I have known that the fried-foods vendor had witch-sight? "Thief! Vandal! Hooligan!"

He was running up to me, and he'd managed to find help. Circus people who weren't demons, or concerned citizens—either way, they were big and looked unfriendly. I could have run, or fought, but why? There wasn't anything more to do here. It was time to leave.

The others seemed to have decided the same thing. And were finding it just as hard to do. "Who's put a bleeding translocation block around the bleeding circus now?" groaned Jason.

"I did," said a familiar voice. We all turned around guiltily.

"Sir," Elizabeth said, "I can explain—!"

"No doubt. However, I'm currently interested in hearing Henrietta's explanation. This man accuses you of wantonly destroying his property," said Gabriel. The fried-foods vendor didn't look nearly as pleased to have found me as he had a moment ago. Too bad for him, but worse for me. "Did you?"

"Yes," I said. It's nearly impossible to lie to Gabriel. I've heard Mordecai did it for a whole day, but I've also heard that he was missing his soul at the time. I wished my soul was safely elsewhere. I'm sure I could have come up with something believable. Instead I said, "Otherwise the circus people would have caught—me." Not that there was going to be any keeping Bernard out of it, but I had to try.

"And why were the circus people chasing you?" said Gabriel.

"I spooked their horses," I said. There.

"Deliberately?" said Gabriel.

Damn. "Yes," I said.

"Why?" said Gabriel.

Well, I'd done my best. "Christopher wanted a distraction," I said, "so he could steal something from the master of the show."

"I thought Christopher would enter into it somewhere," said Gabriel. "And why—apart from old habits dying hard—was Christopher stealing things from the master of the show?"

"There was a Gypsy fortune-teller working here." Here was someone I didn't mind throwing to the wolves! "At least, she billed herself as a Gypsy fortune-teller, but Christopher said she was a sister in the Order of St Ahasuerus, and—"

It's scary, when Gabriel goes white like that. He whispers. Trust me, you don't want to see it. "You ought to have told me that right away," he whispered. Then, louder, "Mordecai, I need you!" Mordecai came elbowing past some bystanders and raised his eyebrows sympathetically at us before turning to Gabriel. He was one adult in the castle who wouldn't assume the worst of us in a situation like this—not that that helped much now.

Mordecai doesn't come when he's called as a rule—only Gabriel does that—so he must have been close by already. Why had Gabriel come, really, and how much did he know? I didn't believe all this was a fuss over a bit of spilt oil.

Mordecai hurried off. If he was looking for Meg I wished him luck. Gabriel's secretary Miss Rosalie appeared from somewhere and took down the name and address of the fried-foods vendor, promised him he'd be compensated for his damages, and let him flee, lucky man. And there went my pocket-money until Christmas at least.

Then Gabriel got the whole story out of us from the beginning. Jason told him how Christopher had met Meg, and how he'd helped Christopher steal the endless knot. Bernard described how I'd created the distraction, and our frantic run through the circus afterwards, though he managed to leave out how I'd nearly kissed him at the end of it. The admiring way he told it would have made me feel better if there'd been any chance Gabriel would share his admiration.

Elizabeth told Gabriel how we'd worked out how Master Dodd was using the endless knots, and how we'd managed to find them and get them away from the kids who'd been caught by them, only to fall under their enchantment ourselves. And I had to tell how I'd banished the demons, and Christopher as well. I felt small and sick and shamed. We all did.

"I see," said Gabriel at the end. He was whispering again, and his frown might have been chiseled into his face. "And at no point during the course of these events did it occur to you to call me?"

Elizabeth, Bernard and I looked at our feet and didn't answer, but Jason is irrepressible. "Christopher said—" he started.

"Isn't there a single one of you capable of thinking for himself?" Gabriel interrupted softly. "One day, I am going to find you all on some arctic plain, the frost giants pouring down from the mountains, and the gods marching forth to meet them. And in the moment before the battle is joined that will destroy the world, I will ask you _why_ you thought it was a good idea to feed the moon to the Fenris Wolf. And you'll tell me, 'Christopher said—'"

This repressed even Jason. Gabriel sighed long-sufferingly. "Very well," he said. "What did Christopher say?"

"He—he said that you and the Order don't get on," Jason stammered.

"No," said Gabriel. "We don't. Are you beginning to understand why?"

Jason hung his head. "Yes, sir."

"The employees of my department answer to me, and I answer to the Government. But a sister of the Order of St Ahasuerus doesn't answer to anybody. At least," Gabriel added, "she believes she doesn't. We shall see."

Mordecai came back then, empty-handed. "No trace," he said.

"There wouldn't be," Gabriel said grimly. "Of all the idiotic things that boy has done, getting himself indebted to the Travelers is surely one of the most brainless. You'll have to continue your search from the castle, in trance."

Mordecai nodded. "Shall I ask Rosalie to play for me?"

"I can't spare Rosalie," said Gabriel. His eye fell on us again. "Take Elizabeth."

"All right," said Mordecai. He'd known he wasn't getting Rosalie, but he always has to try. And Elizabeth played piano for the Royal Children's Orchestra before she came to the castle, and—this is what counts, for a spirit medium—she can play for hours without stopping.

Elizabeth tried not to look too cheerful as she winked out with Mordecai. I can't say as she succeeded. Not that I blamed her—she was getting away from Gabriel and being allowed to do something actually useful to help Christopher at the same time. The rest of us trudged glumly after Gabriel. He spoke to Miss Rosalie, who was questioning confused circus people and angry spectators, and Frederick Parkinson, who was trying to hold up the big tent for long enough to get everyone out of it. Then we translocated with him back to the castle, where he promptly sent us all to our rooms, as if we were five years old.

I had a set of geometry proofs due Monday, and a history essay to finish, and a divination I should have been practicing. The clever thing to do would have been to get those out of the way, because as soon as Gabriel had any attention to spare for me, I was sure to have lines to write as well. Instead, I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about Bernard.

I was going to have to make my mind up about Bernard. On the whole, I liked him. He was brilliant at maths and puzzles, he didn't give a damn what anyone thought of him, and he was only too ready to say what he thought of everyone else. He wasn't smooth and handsome like Christopher, or friendly like Jason, and I liked him better for it. I liked the downright, blunt shapes of his nose and chin, and the way his hair never quite sat the way it should. He was bigger than me—and I don't like feeling small—but he was solid, and comfortable, and posh. Did I mention posh?

 _He's out for what he can get, my girl,_ said a voice in my head that sounded like my mother, _then he'll turn around and marry Lady Prissy Something-or-Other._ That was fine with me. I didn't want to get married, but I was becoming curious to find out what I could get. So why did the idea of Lady Prissy make me feel like I'd sooner hit Bernard than kiss him?

I didn't want to think about it. But the only other thing to think about was Christopher, and I didn't want to think about him, either. It's not that I was worried—I mean, he had three lives left, and stronger magic than Gabriel, and besides, he's _Christopher_. But I felt responsible. And those demons hadn't looked friendly. And I knew he wasn't back yet, because as much as I grumble about Gabriel, if Christopher was back Gabriel would have told us.

I sat up suddenly, as I realized what had been bothering me since Gabriel had caught up with us at the circus. He should have asked where Christopher was first thing, but he hadn't. He hadn't gone looking for us at the circus and found Christopher missing—he'd gone looking for us at the circus because he _knew_ Christopher was missing. And the only way he could have known that—now he couldn't track Christopher by his life anymore—he knew where Christopher was. And he hadn't _told!_

That thought was hot. The next one was chilling. Gabriel knew where Christopher was—and he hadn't dragged him home by the ear. And here I was sitting uselessly in my room. I had to talk to Elizabeth.

I went to my desk and got out a sheet of paper, then changed it to sheet-music paper. That was so I would know where the margins were—I didn't want to accidentally write on Elizabeth's notes while she was playing and maybe lose Mordecai too. I thought of Elizabeth's sheet music on the piano down in the conservatory, and then I thought of empty sheets of paper on Bernard's and Jason's desks as well. Elizabeth had invented this method of passing notes during lessons, and it had worked quite well for a few weeks until Flavian caught on.

 _Does Gabriel know where Christopher is?_ I wrote.

Elizabeth's reply came more slowly. She had to write it in her head, and play at the same time. I held my pen over the paper, itching with impatience, and finally it began to move. _Not exactly._ A long pause. _When we find him I will kill him._ Another pause. _Conrad and Flavian are missing too._

My heart sank at the same time that my pen began moving furiously. It was Jason's chicken-scratch writing, which I could barely read. _What? How? Are you sure it's connected?_

Elizabeth's elegant hand again, painfully slow. _Gabriel saw all three together, but couldn't get through. He doesn't know where. That's why we need Meg._

Conrad and Flavian were _not_ Christopher. Now I was worried. _Any luck with that?_ I wrote.

Elizabeth's next response was not so long in coming. It was only two letters, and a stop. _No._

 _Meg?_ The writing was weak and wobbly, and two years in one of the best schools in Switzerland hadn't quite got rid of its odd slant. I hadn't thought to include Millie in the spell, but she must have been so starved for news and company that she'd felt it as soon as we started. She'd been in bed with flu, and forbidden visitors, since she'd come back from Seven—if she was well enough to write, we were lucky she hadn't blown up the castle out of boredom by now.

Bernard, Jason and I all began writing explanations at once. I don't see how Millie managed to understand half of it. But she must have, because what she wrote back was to the point.

 _The Travelers move in a spiral, Christopher says. I was in one of their wagons once. It was_ —here the pen hesitated for a moment— _odd. Travelling the worlds the way I learned it is like walking to the village, or sailing to Atlantis. But I got the impression they see it quite differently._

 _Look around yourself._ It was Bernard's neat, square writing. _What do you see, that you can't see past?_

What was the use of bringing that up now? _A tent_ , I wrote, _if you're in a tent._

 _The world_ , wrote Bernard.

I blinked. I'm lousy at riddles, but I really should have got that one. If there's one thing the priests and lamas of Tibet agree on, it's that the world is an illusion. So . . . if here is an illusion and there is an illusion, what difference does it make if you're here, and where you want to be is over there?

 _A tent?_ wrote Millie.

 _What are you talking about?_ wrote Jason.

Millie hadn't been at the circus that morning, but Jason should have caught Bernard's reference. Unless—had he seen it, or had Bernard meant it just for me? Or had he been scribbling to himself, and I happened to catch it? He surely didn't mean to share the mathematical squiggles my pen copied down next with anyone else—he had to know we wouldn't understand them. Not even Flavian understands Bernard's squiggles. He teaches the rest of us maths, but he gets Bernard the books he wants and gets out of the way.

And then I was drawing something that wasn't a Greek letter, or a Hebrew letter. It was a cross, with two diagonal lines joining each angle. An endless knot—it was a cage, and a house. Could it also be a path? I drew the last line, and felt about the same as I had when I'd banished Christopher and the demons. Something was missing.

 _Bernard?_ I wrote. No answer. But he might have been distracted, in a mathematical trance, there was no reason to think—Jason's room was next to Bernard's. He'd have felt it, if Bernard had suddenly gone. _Jason? Is Bernard still there?_

 _No. What's going on?_ It took me a few seconds to puzzle out. Jason's handwriting doesn't get better when he's in a panic.

My handwriting wouldn't have earned me any gold stars, either. I scribbled with my right hand as I fished around in my coat pocket for the endless knot with my left. _Cover for us, all right?_

Whatever he might have written back, I didn't catch it. I set down my pen, and held the endless knot in both hands. I hadn't prayed for years, not really, but here I was doing priest's work. Praying seemed like a good idea. "I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Buddhas, I take refuge in the three thousand Gods of the sky and the earth," I whispered. "Show me the way." Then I looked at the endless knot, and let myself fall in. Bernard's trail burned red as fire.

Typically of me, I only realized later that I'd made my mind up about Bernard. He'd gone after me. I would go after him.

Then I was standing next to Bernard, and both of us were somewhere. He might have known where; he'd done the calculations. Wherever it was, there were trees, and a clearing, and a shore of some body of water in the distance.

"You know," I said as we started walking down the hill we'd found ourselves on, "for someone raised in the Church of England, you make a pretty good Buddhist."

"Religion." Bernard shrugged. "It's all more or less nonsense, isn't it?"

"That's what the Buddha Klu Sgrub said," I agreed.

Spread out in the valley below was a camp, the biggest and strangest I'd ever seen—not that I'd seen many camps. There must have been a hundred Gypsy wagons, parked next to tents of black cloth and tents of brown hide, a cluster of yurts, and stranger things—I saw a couple of naked children with soft, speckled feathers climbing out of what looked like a giant puffball fungus. There were camels, and mules hung with strings of bells, and drawn up on the shore were a dozen two-keeled boats. Someone was playing a fiddle, and several other people were playing drums. It stank like a camp of a thousand people, but there was a stronger smell of good things cooking; meaty, spicy and rich. Magic hung over everything, thicker than the smoke of campfires.

A cluster of children ran up to the edge of the camp and stared at us as we came down. One—so draped in robes and veils that I couldn't tell anything about it except that it was smaller than me—said something in a quick and chirping language that I couldn't follow.

"We're looking for Meg Reilly," said Bernard.

The veiled child said something to a centaur foal standing next to her. The centaur said something to a dark-skinned girl, dressed Gypsy-style, and she ran off into the camp. As she ran, I saw her touch the cloud of magic, and draw down what she needed.

"Did you see that?" I whispered. This camp was the opposite of an orderly monastery carved changelessly into a mountainside, but they didn't call themselves the Order for nothing. "They hold their magic in common."

I was still turning this over in my mind when the Gypsy girl came back with a shaggy blond boy in a patchwork jacket and trousers. The magic of a thousand people—and I could tell this was only a small part of all the brothers and sisters of St Ahasuerus in all the worlds—and any of them could use it at any time. And Gabriel meant to fight these people?

"What d'you want with our Meg?" the blond boy asked.

"Tell her," said Bernard, "that I owe her a favor."


	4. Conrad

Christopher leaned into one of the great iron doors, and pushed. The painted lines darted away from his shoulder where it touched them, but kept their human shapes. There was the girl we'd first seen, in her sailor dress and broad straw hat; another girl, tall, pale, and pudgy; and three small boys. They twisted away from Christopher and shrieked. The door stayed where it was—a crack open, and no more. "It's going to take all of us, I think," he said.

Flavian had propped himself against the lintel, shaking. He was putting his back and shoulders into each breath, but he couldn't seem to get enough air. "Ch-ch-christopher," he panted, "we c-c-can't . . . l-leave them."

At first I thought his wits were wandering, and then I realized he meant the children in the door.

"We won't be leaving them," said Christopher, "since they aren't exactly here. Right now I'm just trying to get _you_ home in one piece."

"B-but that's . . . w-w-wrong," said Flavian. "I w-work for the D-d-department. When y-you're the n-next Ch-ch-chrest-t-tomanci," he finally got out, and Christopher winced at Flavian's favorite phrase, "it'll be your j-j-job . . . to risk p-people like m-me . . . f-for people like th-th-them."

It was appalling logic. "Grant?" said Christopher, in a smaller voice than I'd ever heard him use.

I looked at Flavian, bowed over and panting and blue around the mouth. I looked at the twisting figures in the door, all calling at the top of their voices for Master Dodd. I could barely feel my toes, and my shoulder was stiff where the firebird had caught it, and the calls echoing off the cliffs sent chills down my spine. I won't lie—I wanted to go home. I looked at Christopher. "Speaking as the future representative of Chrestomanci in Series Seven," I said, "I'm going to have to agree with Flavian."

Christopher shut his eyes for a moment. I felt rather as though I'd hit him. I knew that what he'd wanted to hear was _save me, Christopher_ —but what could I do?

"Well," said Christopher. "Quickly, Conrad—Fire, water, earth, or air?"

He'd lost me again, but I felt the wind blow past my ears and said, "Er—air."

"Flavian?" said Christopher.

"Earth," said Flavian, promptly and without stuttering.

"Of course," said Christopher. He took the weaving out of his pocket again, tugged at it, and handed me a green string. It disappeared when I took it, and I felt very peculiar; I knew some magic had happened, but I couldn't say what. He handed Flavian a yellow string. I could taste the magic that time. It tasted of dirt and exactly right for Flavian. I could see why he hadn't hesitated, and why Christopher had said _of course._ "Now," said Christopher. "If you could find your places in the pattern."

The green lines on the door were suddenly fascinating the way the weaving I'd held had been earlier. I tried to shy away from them, but it was hard, and Christopher and Flavian were fading into the door somehow and I didn't want to be left behind. So I let my mind go. There was a confusion of color and a sick, dizzy feeling in my stomach, and then we were somewhere else.

I say somewhere, but there were no features to the landscape, only lights too bright to look at, and gray smoke in the middle distance. Flavian stood straight and didn't tremble, which added to the feeling that none of this was exactly real. If I squinted, I thought I could see three Christophers, all occupying the same space. I didn't quite like to do that.

Real or not, I shrank closer to Christopher and Flavian as a group of demons came circling around us. One was pounding out an insistent beat on a drum, two swung jangling bells, and a fourth blew a wailing blast on an instrument that looked like it might have been made from a long bone of some animal. The fifth was a woman-thing the size of a house, grinning with far too many teeth, and twirling a noose that made the air sing.

"What are you doing here, little prey?" she hissed.

"Er," said Christopher. "I wonder if you'd be good enough to tell me where here is? I'm not sure I'll be able to answer your question otherwise, you see."

"This is the border realm, the southern gateway of Master Dodd's hunting grounds, and I am its guardian, and you should not be here," said the demon. "You should have stayed to be caught by Master Dodd. He would not have killed you, but we will."

"I hardly think that's necessary," said Christopher. "We're perfectly willing to leave, once we've found who we're looking for."

The guardian twirled her noose. The smaller demons circled, still making a racket. None of them made a move towards us. It wasn't the flashiest piece of magic I'd ever seen Christopher do, but it was one of the strongest—as long as he was talking, she'd keep talking too.

"It is too late for that," the guardian hissed.

Knowing about Christopher's spell made me a little calmer, but I still kept a nervous eye on that noose as it swished back and forth. It looked like nothing so much as a plait of hair. And the flaming halo around her head might almost have been a broad straw hat . . . "Christopher," I whispered, "it's _her_. The girl in the door, in the sailor dress."

Well, I tried to whisper. I wasn't quite in my usual body, and I misjudged the volume. The guardian turned towards me, and the delicate structure of Christopher's magic crumbled. The demons brandished their instruments and started forward. "Enough _talking!_ " the guardian shrieked, sounding rather like my sister when I interrupted her studying for exams. "Slay!"

She threw her noose at Christopher. I made a grab for it, but I was too slow. The two demons with bells leapt at Flavian. The one with the bone trumpet swung it at me. I staggered backwards. But as it whistled past my head I saw he was just doing it for the look of the thing, and hadn't meant to hit me at all.

"Who am _I_ really?" he whispered. "Tell me!"

His demonic appearance wasn't anything as simple as an illusion, but witch sight is one of the things I'm good at. "You've recently lost a tooth, a bottom front one," I said. "You've got lots of freckles. Your hair could use a cut. Does that help at all?"

He dropped his bone trumpet and screwed up his face. "I want to go _home!_ " he wailed.

"Don't be so feeble, Robin!" snapped the guardian. She _was_ a big sister.

"I don't see what's feeble about refusing to stay tamely where Master Dodd put you," said Christopher. I hadn't seen what had happened between him and the guardian, but he was holding his right arm carefully, close to his body. "Who else wants to go home?"

"We can't," said the demon with the drum. She was a plump pale girl, about my age, making her the oldest of the demon children there. "The lights keep us in. They sting."

"They might sting," said Flavian. He was straightening up and brushing himself off; he looked all right. "But they won't keep you in, if you're not afraid. Do you remember how you came to be here, the colors? The same color will get you out."

"Right," said Christopher. "Just look at your color, and keep up with us."

I looked at the green light. It made my eyes water. All around me, the demon children—who were looking less like demons and more like children all the time—shuffled and winced and forced themselves to look at the lights too. They were the same patterns of color I'd seen on the door, seen from the inside, repulsive rather than attractive. But I was nearly used to it by now, and once I stopped being bothered by the timeless stretched-out strings of people and the multiplicity of Christopher, I saw that he was actually navigating. I didn't know how he could do it, but I could tell we were somehow heading _across_ rather than _out_.

We ended in a place that looked a lot like the border realm we'd just left, and were surrounded by demons again. The house-sized one with a pointed, hooked stick told us he was the guardian of the western gateway. The former guardian of the southern gateway twirled her noose at him—which still buzzed with magic, although she was just a small girl now—but Christopher managed to recall them to themselves and persuade them to come with us without any fighting this time. The same thing happened in the northern border realm.

Christopher steered us towards the eastern door, but he couldn't get into it—that was the silver one, I remembered. The rest of us tumbled into the border realm anyhow. I talked quickly and Flavian stopped the former guardian of the southern gateway from strangling anyone.

And presently Christopher, Flavian, twenty children holding a collection of grisly magical weapons and instruments, and I were out in the cold and the real, in front of a pair of doors set into a mountain face. Flavian was shaking and panting and blue again, now he was back in his body, and Christopher still held his arm awkwardly from the hurt he'd taken in the border realms. It hardly seemed fair, but magic often isn't.

The doors were shining and golden, without a speck of paint or color on them, and unlike the iron doors these were firmly shut. I had a nasty suspicion about that.

"Now, everyone together," said Christopher, "push."

And we pushed. Those of us who could, put magic into it. But the doors didn't move.

"No use," I said. One of the girls from the eastern border realm started to cry. I didn't know what to say. I'd said we'd get her home, but I'd lied. "Henrietta may have opened the doors, but they're shut now."

"It s-s-stands t-to . . . r-r-reason," Flavian panted, "w-w-without th-their g-g-guardians."

"Does it," said Christopher. His voice was colder than the wind blowing past us, and that was _cold_. "If I'm ever the next Chrestomanci, Flavian, it will be your job to give me accurate information. It's your job now, come to that. I can't _imagine_ how you neglected to mention this possibility."

Flavian just blinked at him miserably, and I—well, I lost it.

"Leave _off_ , Christopher!" I shouted. Anger felt good—miles better than fear and guilt. "Flavian did his best, and he's freezing to death, and he doesn't deserve to be _sneered_ at! Have you done any better? We wouldn't even be here if you hadn't got involved with demons invoking ritual hunts. I'm beginning to think Flavian was right about you, you unfeeling, superior _bastard!_ "

The blank, stunned look that had come over Christopher's face when I started shouting at him had been replaced by something more unnerving. His eyes were shining and a smile was beginning to curl at the edges of his mouth. "Say that again," he said.

I blinked. There were tears freezing my eyelashes together. "You're an unfeeling, superior bastard?" I said.

"No, no," said Christopher impatiently. "Before that."

I thought back on what I'd said, feeling rather sick. "Er . . . we wouldn't even be here if you hadn't got involved with demons invoking ritual hunts?"

" _That's_ it," said Christopher, grinning delightedly. "I'm an idiot, Conrad. Henrietta invoked the hunt, not Master Dodd. _We_ should be hunting _them_."

"Does it make a difference?" I said.

"It might," said Christopher. He looked at all the formerly demonic children clustered around us. They looked wide-eyed back. We must have been better than a show. "I don't suppose any of you have ever hunted," he said a bit helplessly. When he got nothing but silence and incredulous stares, he sighed. "I never thought I'd say this, but I wish my cousin Francis were here."

"Er." It was the former guardian of the southern gateway's brother, Robin. "Emily and me . . . we help our dad with his liming sometimes."

"Eh?" said Christopher.

"P-p-poaching b-birds," Flavian translated.

The former guardian of the southern gateway—Emily—gave her brother a cuff. "Fathead!" she said. "He could be a policeman or anything!"

Christopher was laughing now, though not in any way that someone who didn't know him could tell. "As it happens, my colleague is employed by the Government in an, er, law-enforcement capacity, but I assure you that that is the sort of crime that doesn't interest him in the least," he said. "Your secret is safe with us. Isn't it, Flavian?"

"Wh-what?" said Flavian. "Oh—y-y-yes, of c-course."

"And," said Christopher more seriously, "I do think your skills are likely to be more useful than my cousin Francis', the twit. In fact, they'll probably make the difference between all of us getting home, versus spending the rest of our existences guarding the gateways of Master Dodd's hunting grounds. You have a very useful cord there, I see. Can you set snares?"

"Yah," Emily acknowledged, proud and suspicious at once.

"Christopher," I said, looking up at the darkening sky, "demons."

"Good," said Christopher. "We're hunting them now, remember? The rest of us will have to distract them and give our friend with the rope a chance to set her snare."

"Distract how?" I said.

"Run," said Christopher.

"Right," I grumbled. "This is very different than being hunted by demons, then." But I hauled Flavian to his feet—because he didn't have the strength left to stand himself—and put my head down, and ran. Christopher and the whole crowd of kids ran too. And it seemed that Emily, in her incarnation as the guardian of the southern gateway, had been telling the truth. Christopher did have to deflect a firebird from swooping down on a small girl who had fallen behind, and dissuade a bear-thing from taking a chunk out of a boy who swung a length of chain at it—but on the whole, the demons weren't trying to kill us. They were herding us. I had to hope they were herding us somewhere we wanted to go, and that this was one of Christopher's clever plans and not one of his stupid ones, because sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and I had to concentrate on keeping Flavian moving.

We were being driven up a slope, and at the crest of the slope there was a tree—a proper tree, not a gaudy Twelve one, stout and gnarled, greenish-gray trunk and grayish-green needles. At first I thought it was short, but as we got closer I saw that it was just that it was nearly as enormous around as it was up and down. I also saw, out of the corner of my eye, Christopher give a signal to Emily and Robin, and the two of them slip through the closing line of demons.

Another minute, and we were all backed up against the tree, as snake demons writhed around our feet and bear demons prowled beyond them. Firebirds flashed in the sky and the pounding of the demons on flying drums sang like blood in my ears. Something came striding up, big as the mountain we stood on, round as the world, blue as space. Too many arms, too many teeth, too loud, too bright. It could only be Master Dodd.

"Such a chase, as there hasn't been for thousands of years!" It wasn't so much that he spoke, as that the words had always been there—in the air, in the ground, everywhere. "But now it ends."

"Y-yes," said Christopher. Behind me I felt something tighten, and catch, and Robin darted up and handed something to Christopher, wet and blue-back. Christopher put the thing carefully on the ground in front of him, knelt, and produced a penknife—it was Flavian's, I recognized it. I could see the effort he was making, keeping everything still while he worked, keeping himself still, though his body wanted to shake. "Open the doors," he said, "we are coming to make the offering." Then he drove the penknife into the—it must have been a heart—and clear to the ground beneath.

There were whoops and laughter from the kids. "Did you see that?"—"Bang! Gone!"—and, more tentatively, "Where'd they go?"

They hadn't gone anywhere, the demons; they were where they'd always been, inherent in the elements. But now they moved with the wind, with the water, with the slow erosion of the mountain. Christopher had fixed them in place. I guess most of the kids couldn't see them at all.

"What now?" I said. "Back to a door?" Christopher had re-opened the doors, but I didn't think Flavian would be able to do that run again. Neither, by the way Christopher was shaking and struggling to catch his breath, would he. And small kids freeze fast.

Christopher pulled himself to his feet, leaning on the tree. "Th-this is a d-d-d-door," he said. "F-five elements, f-five cardinal d-d-directions. N-north, south, east, w-west—and _out_. Wh-what do you s-s-see?"

"It's a tree," I said, and it was. But it wasn't just. "It's a cord," and then, "it's a ladder."

"G-g-good," said Christopher. "T-take Flavian and c-c-climb."

I said, "But you—"

"I've g-g-got to make s-sure everyone g-g-goes up," said Christopher. "And y-y-you've got to k-keep seeing a ladder for the r-r-rest of us. You've g-got the c-c-clearest eyes."

It was the same thing that Gabriel had said, right before he whisked me off to Series Twelve. But somehow when Christopher said it, I believed it. "I will," I said.

"G-grant," said Christopher. "W-w-what you s-said—I'm—am I r-r-really—" His voice had gone thick and he was looking somewhere off to my left. I didn't know if it was hypothermia or something else, but it scared me worse than demons.

"Christopher," I said. I put a hand on his shoulder, to steady him, or—I don't know. I could feel his whole body shake. _You don't have to do this_ was what I wanted to say, but it wasn't true. "Be careful."

He looked at me then, seeming startled to find our two faces so close together. Startled, and then desperately intense.

It probably counted as making people notice. I'm sure I heard nervous giggles from the crowd of kids. But he kissed me anyway.

"G-go," he said, and I got an arm around Flavian and hauled. He wasn't shaking anymore, which was a bad sign, I knew. I spared one last backward glance at Christopher, pale and trembling at the foot of the tree, and then I reached for a rung of the ladder just above my head, and started climbing.


	5. Henrietta

"You don't owe me a thing, enchanter," said Meg, folding her arms across her broad chest and glowering. It was a good glower. All of the Travelers' magic darkened like stormclouds. "And it isn't a subject for jokes."

Bernard opened his mouth. I'm not a fast talker, but this time I spoke first. "What have you done with Christopher?" I said. And hadn't Bernard seen enough to know that owing a favor to the Order was a bad idea?

"Nothing," said Meg. "Nor did I ask anything of him that he didn't give freely. I have my vows. Do you know what it would cost me to break them?"

I didn't, but I hoped it was awful. "He didn't know what would happen," I said. "But you did, didn't you? You set him up!"

"I knew little enough," said Meg. "I didn't even know what Master Dodd was until you told me—for which I thank you. But I knew he wouldn't move on until he'd taken five lives, for he'd done it before. And your friend has nine."

Bernard snorted a laugh. "He was so sure you didn't know that," he said. "Always thinks he knows more than anyone else. But, listen—"

"Three," I interrupted him. I was trying very hard not to throw a lightning bolt at Meg, or anything like that. The magic of a thousand people, I told myself. Bad idea. "He has three, you—you—he would have told you if you'd _asked!_ "

"That can't—" Meg looked shaken, for the first time. I'd have liked to shake her. "How could he have lost so many? And how could it have worked—I felt Master Dodd go, clear out of the worlds—how, if he didn't take five?"

"He did," said Bernard. He counted off on his fingers. "Christopher, Christopher, Christopher, Flavian, Conrad."

"Who?" said Meg.

"Our tutor," I said, "and another friend. They didn't owe you any favors, did they? And you can't say they went freely. What do your vows have to say about that?"

Meg went white. She was old, and suddenly she looked old _and_ frail. "There's time. There must be, or I'd know." She strode up the path we'd come down on. A few people in the camp watched her go without comment. "You wanted my help, didn't you? Well, you have it. Come along!"

We hurried after her. "Where are we going?" said Bernard.

"Wherever we need to be," said Meg.

Following Meg was different than following Bernard. Less deliberate, more dizzying. But there was the same sense of movement-and-stillness, and then we were where we needed to be. Bad luck, where we needed to be was the conservatory back at the castle.

Elizabeth gasped, and her fingers faltered for a moment, then she began playing a different tune. A simple scale, up and down, which meant _abort, abort, abort._ On his couch, Mordecai began to stir and become more solid.

From the hallway beyond, I heard Jason's voice: "I don't know where they went, sir, honestly—"

Gabriel stalked in, actually dragging Jason by the ear. He let go quickly when he saw us. "Miss Reilly, I presume?" he said.

"Meg," said Meg. Behind Gabriel's back, Jason mouthed, _Sorry._ Mordecai sat up and wrapped his blanket around himself. Elizabeth put her hands in her lap. They were shaking.

"Well done, Mordecai," said Gabriel.

"Not my doing," said Mordecai. "I was asking fruitlessly around in Series Six when Elizabeth called me back, and there she was."

"Indeed," said Gabriel. "Why?"

"I don't know," retorted Meg. "I thought I'd be going somewhere I could be of use."

"I advise you to make yourself useful regardless," said Gabriel. "I wouldn't even have to get a court order to take away your magic, would I? One night under a roof will do it, more thoroughly and permanently than my usual methods."

Meg bared her teeth. "Is it war with the Order you want, Chrestomanci? There are more of us than there are of you, and we go where we will."

"Enough," I said. "You said you'd help us, Meg."

"And so I will," she said. "But I'm not sure how. I thought we'd find them when we walked, but we ended up here instead."

"Do you mean to say," said Gabriel, "that you spirited my employee and two of my wards away, and you don't even know where?"

"It looks like that, doesn't it?" said Meg. "I find it helps, when looking for something you've lost, to think of where you saw it last."

Gabriel scowled. But even he must have seen that Meg wasn't going to be able to produce Christopher, Conrad, and Flavian from her pocket. "It was on a mountain," he said. "There was snow on the ground. The faces of the mountain seemed to be different colors, and there was a great tree on the summit."

"Gang Rinpoche," I said. "But they couldn't—to set foot on it is death."

"I did think," said Meg, "that I felt them go out of the worlds altogether."

"They were alive when I saw them," said Gabriel.

"Not dead," I said. "The world—all the worlds—they're in three parts, right? The upper part where the—you call them the Lords of Karma—where they live, and our part, that's the middle, and the lower part. If I sent them where the demons belong, that's the lower part. But Gang Rinpoche joins them all together."

"Ah," said Gabriel. If he'd made sense of what I'd said, I couldn't see how. More priest's work! "This Gang Rinpoche is an omphalos, then."

"A what?" I said.

"An omphalos," repeated Gabriel. "What has Flavian been teaching you? An axis mundi, a world-tree, a foundation stone. A center of the world."

"Gang Rinpoche is _the_ center of the world," I said. "There's only one."

"Naturally," said Gabriel. "But it happens to exist in several places at once. Fortunately, one of them is quite near." He looked around at us. "I'm going to have to ask you all to accompany me," he added, "as it seems that I cannot take my eye off you for a moment."

And no _Well done finding Meg, Bernard; I ought to have told you where I saw Christopher, Conrad, and Flavian earlier, Henrietta, it would have saved us all time and effort; Elizabeth, thank you for wrecking your hands in my service._ Typical! But at least we weren't going to be left out of things again.

Those of us who weren't already wearing coats conjured them—except for Meg, who didn't seem to mind the cold, and Mordecai, who honestly can't conjure and grabbed his from a coatrack in the hall. We also picked up Miss Rosalie and Frederick Parkinson, who'd come back from the circus, and Gabriel said, "You'd better have your surgery ready," to Dr. Simonson in passing. Then we set out across the lawn.

"We must be going to the ruin!" Jason whispered. "I don't think even Christopher's been there!"

Gabriel is old, but his hearing is quite sharp, and even if he were deaf he probably would have heard Jason's whisper. "It would go without saying—were it not for the fact that very little goes without saying where all of you are concerned, and even saying doesn't often have much effect—that the part of the grounds where we are going is strictly forbidden to children, or to anyone who is not accompanied by me. I devoutly hope that circumstances which would compel me to bring any of you there are unlikely to arise again, so make the most of it while you can," he added.

This speech did nothing to dampen Jason's excitement, or the rest of ours. It wasn't often that any of us at the castle got to do something that Christopher hadn't done first. We'd tried to get into the ruin before, of course, but there's a powerful misdirection on it and it moves about. It held still for Gabriel then, though. I don't think it would have dared not.

Soon we came to a high wall, damp with autumn mist. There was a staircase set into it, and we began to climb, and climb, and after a while Bernard was puffing and my legs ached and Mordecai had to help Gabriel along. But there was a feeling, of magic and something that wasn't quite magic, and I started to believe that this place might in some way be the same as Gang Rinpoche after all.

"But look, we can't climb Gang Rinpoche," I said. "Death, remember?" If Gabriel was going to go all not-paying-any-mind again—well, he had lives to spare, but the rest of us didn't.

"Isn't it fortunate," Gabriel panted, "that I have no intention of climbing mountains after this. The garden should take us to the summit."

"I'm not sure that's better," I said. They say a saint could fly up to the peak of Gang Rinpoche and take no harm, but we were none of us saints.

Bernard leaned against the wall and looked out over the shifting landscape below. I could almost see mathematical spirals in his eyes. "If we arrived out of phase . . . we wouldn't exactly be setting foot on holy ground, would we?"

"Out of phase?" said Meg, speaking for the rest of us.

I didn't quite catch Bernard's dark mutter about people who worked by intuition. "There and not there, if you see what I mean. We wouldn't be able to touch things, but do we need to?"

"Huh," said Meg. Then it was more climbing, and none of us had any breath for speech. It was a relief when we got to the narrow entrance at the top of the stairs, and all filed in. There was a cool breeze, very welcome after the hot climb, and a riot of flowers. Bernard started sneezing.

"I wonder if you would lead, Meg," said Gabriel, "as you seem to have a talent for going places when you have no idea what you're doing, which I sadly lack. I warn you, to find anything in this garden you must go anticlockwise."

"I can see that," snapped Meg, and I thought, just like the priests! The lamas do it clockwise. For a moment I felt as smug as Christopher. We followed Meg, stillness and motion, but now I could see the world moving around us, and feel it, too, very hot, full of summer flowers and fruit. Then cold, and then nothing. Out of phase, like Bernard had said.

We stood—or not exactly stood—on the summit of a mountain, next to a tree so enormous that if all of us linked hands and stood around it, we wouldn't be able to close the circle. The top of the tree was lost in the sky, and the faces of the mountain were gold and lapis, ruby and crystal. I found I was whispering a prayer again, and my cheeks were wet. I remembered my grandfather, who had died in England, far from the holy mountain, and here I was—here and not-here—where I had never particularly wanted to be.

"This is the place," said Gabriel. "They're not here."

"Nor anywhere nearby," said Elizabeth. All of us—all of us who were enchanters, anyway—felt that too. You can't miss Christopher's presence, and Conrad's and Flavian's are nearly as strong.

Gabriel put a hand into the tree, and faded until I could barely see him. Just for a moment, then he was back. "Nor in the lower world," he said. "They were there, but they're not anymore."

"They must be caught between," said Meg. I could hear she was frightened. Gabriel wouldn't need to remove her magic, he'd said. One night under a roof, one breach of her vows, if she didn't get Conrad and Flavian back—that would do it. She'd done this to Christopher on purpose; I shouldn't have felt sorry for her. But I did.

I knelt by the foot of the tree. "As I was wandering in the Bardo . . ." I muttered to myself. I was annoyed to hear tears in my voice, and that I seemed to have switched over to Tibetan without meaning to.

"What was that?" said Bernard. He was crouched beside me. I couldn't look at him. The concern in his voice was bad enough; I didn't want to see it in his face.

"A Bardo," I said. "It's a place that isn't a place, between two different types of existence."

"A liminal state," Gabriel suggested.

"Like the World's Edge," said Mordecai.

"Like and not like," I said. The endless knot was in my pocket again, and I took it out and started unwinding, one color after another. "If someone is lost in the Bardo, they can find their way out. If they have a path, and a guide." I lowered the cord as I unwound it, down into the roots of the tree, and beyond. My grandfather always said, you don't choose priest's work, it calls you.

When my cord was all played out, I felt it catch on something. "Remember the world of men?" I said. "Here we are. Come back." I began reeling the cord back in. It was a cord, it was a tree, it was a ladder—and Conrad was climbing up it one-handed, pulling Flavian along with his other hand. I've said he could barely do any magic, and he _couldn't_ , up till then, but that was a better job of levitation than I could have done.

"Oh," he said, "g-good." Then he dragged himself and Flavian the rest of the way up to stand next to us on the mountain. Conrad was unsteady, but Flavian was limp, blue, and staring. Mordecai came forward to catch him.

"God, you're a mess, Flavian," he said. "Just like that time with the mad skald in Vinland, remember? Dr. Simonson will see you right, don't worry."

It was Mordecai's face that was gray and drawn; Flavian was beyond worry, I'd have thought. But his eyes focused, and he said, "Mmm . . . mmm . . ."

And Conrad's eyes went from Flavian to Mordecai and back, and his mouth went _Oh._

Look, I'm just telling this story; don't ask me to explain it.

Then Conrad saw Gabriel, and he went startled and guilty, the way you do when you see Gabriel suddenly. "S-s-sir," he said, "I c-c-can—"

"You can go home," said Gabriel gruffly. "See Dr. Simonson. We'll talk afterwards."

Conrad looked over his shoulder, and back at Gabriel, and followed Mordecai off of the mountain and back through the garden. I felt another footfall on the ladder, and I reeled it in some more, but it wasn't Christopher. It was a scowling girl in a broad straw hat and plaits. She scrambled up and dusted snow of her sailor dress.

Meg laughed. "Emily Stoll!" she said. "Your ma's been having kittens."

"Yah? Now tell me some news," said Emily. "Come along, Robin!"

A small boy with ten thousand freckles came up the ladder next. His teeth were chattering. Elizabeth ran up to him, shrugging out of her coat. "You poor thing, you're frozen!" she said, wrapping it around his shoulders.

"It's them, the kids Master Dodd made off with," said Jason. "Christopher and Conrad and Flavian got them all out!"

 _And what am I doing_ , I would have grumbled, but I was busy pulling one child after another out of the Bardo. They clustered around Elizabeth as she conjured jumpers, blankets, mufflers, and whatever else she could think of. Gabriel stood looking more and more like someone had carved him out of wood, like a cigar-store Atlantean.

"Rosalie, take all these children away and see that they're returned to . . . wherever they belong," he said finally.

"Yes, sir," she said. I'm not sure if Gabriel thought that being a woman, Miss Rosalie would naturally know what to do with twenty runny-nosed, bewildered children—or if he just thought, rather her than me. I know which one I was thinking. But Jason and Elizabeth were not so easily dismayed. Jason lifted a tiny girl onto his shoulders, and said something I couldn't hear, but made all the kids laugh. Elizabeth actually had them singing a walking song as they marched back towards the castle. Miss Rosalie brought up the rear, clearly relieved.

"End of the line," I said.

And then Christopher was coming up the ladder, shaking and nearly as blue as Flavian, but climbing all the same. He staggered as he reached the middle world, and Frederick Parkinson caught him. "Let's get you to Dr. Simonson," he said.

"W-w-wait," said Christopher, and stood straighter, though he had to keep leaning on Frederick. "M-meg. H-h-have I r-repaid the f-f-favor?"

"Handsomely," Meg acknowledged. "If anything, the Order owes—"

"D-d-don't _say_ it," said Christopher. "I'd r-rather we were j-just qu-qu-quit."

Meg laughed, and folded her arms, and nodded, and Christopher let Frederick lead him away.

"Well," said Gabriel. "I believe our work here is done." I didn't miss that _our_ , when all the people who were actually employed by Gabriel had already gone. I thought that was all the thanks I was going to get—and it was a lot, from Gabriel—but I was wrong. "Henrietta, Bernard," he went on. "I despair of ever teaching you discipline, or curing your impetuousness. But your devotion to your friends does you credit, and I doubt I could have retrieved them without your help. Thank you." We were still being gobsmacked by this when he turned to Meg. "And Meg, thank you for your assistance as well."

I was really proud of Gabriel just then. That must have hurt like hell for him to say.

Meg grinned. "No trouble. I have my vows." Then she went sober. "And I wouldn't have, any more, if we'd not got your young men back. For which I thank _you._ In particular, enchantress."

Elizabeth was gone, so she must have meant me.

"The Order generally recruits from travelling peoples," she went on, "but not always. You have a quick hand and a cool head in a crisis, and some feeling, I think, for what we are. Will you travel with us, and call me sister?"

I gaped at her. I couldn't do anything else, for a moment. I should have thought of more magic than I'd ever dreamed of at my fingertips. I should have thought about how carefully I'd have to use it, or lose it all. Maybe I should even have thought about preserving the balance of the worlds. But all I could think about was the purr of a fiddle and the rhythm of drums, and the smell of something meaty and spicy cooking on a campfire.

I knew whatever I told Meg then, yes or no, would be forever. So I didn't say anything. She nodded, understanding.

Gabriel didn't. "Might I remind you," he said coldly, "that Miss Gelek is under my protection."

"Peace, Chrestomanci," said Meg. "Do you think I mean to pop her in a sack and carry her off? But you cannot keep her caged forever. Enchantress, if you should ever want us, you know where to find us. Go with God." And she turned, or the world turned around her, and she was gone.


	6. Conrad

I told Dr. Simonson, once he'd cleaned up my shoulder, that all I needed was a hot drink and a warm bath. He took my temperature fifteen times, and shone lights in my eyes, and told me to stand in a pentagram while he burned something that made me sneeze, but eventually he believed me. I made my escape while he muttered about Series Seven physiology and double-blind studies and the Royal Society of Medicine. I am all for the advancement of human knowledge, but Dr. Simonson makes me nervous.

The hot drink was heavenly, and the warm bath was better. I sank under the water until only my nose was sticking out, and decided that I was going to move permanently to Series Nine. I've heard the temperature never goes below freezing there. Then the dinner gong rang, and there was no other way I was going to get any news, so I went down to the schoolroom. I thought about going in a dressing gown—clothes seemed like so much work—but I'm not Christopher and I'd feel stupid trying to be.

Elizabeth threw herself at me as soon as I opened the door, and I staggered backwards. "Conrad! How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," I said, again. I felt like I'd never be done saying it. "Really."

"I'm so glad," said Elizabeth. "I told Christopher I'd hold him responsible and I will. As soon as he's feeling better I will murder him. Twice."

If Elizabeth was threatening to murder him, Christopher must have got back all right. But _as soon as he's feeling better_ was worrying. "Please don't," I said.

"Then I will tell him your pleas have saved his life." She laughed, and stepped aside, and let me come into the schoolroom. The maids had already brought in the food and left to help with dinner for the adults. Jason had his feet up on one of the desks, and Bernard was helping himself to vast quantities of mashed potato, and Henrietta was sitting with her hands in her lap and an angelic expression on her face, as if she had definitely not eaten Elizabeth's pudding while her back was turned.

"How is Christopher? And Flavian?" I said. The last time I'd seen Flavian, being carried into Dr. Simonson's surgery by Mordecai, he'd looked like death.

"Resting," said Elizabeth, "but out of danger. Both of them. They should be up and about in a few days, Dr. Simonson says."

"But I doubt," said Bernard, looking up from his pile of mashed potatoes with a grin, "that Flavian will be wanting to take a walk with any of his students again, any time soon. Congratulations, Conrad; you've accomplished what no one else could."

I hoped I hadn't really ruined Flavian's pleasure in walking, but when I came to think of it, I rather thought I must have. _It's my evil fate again!_ I thought before I remembered. I smiled back, uneasily. I could see Bernard had meant it—not kindly; kind isn't a word I'd use for Bernard—but as a compliment, anyway.

"You've got to tell us how you saved all those kids," Jason said.

Elizabeth rounded on him. "Let him eat first!"

"Don't fuss, Elizabeth," said Henrietta, eyeing my pudding greedily.

I'd had an early breakfast before I'd left with Flavian, and nothing since, but I thought I'd rather talk than eat. I'd never spent time with the other enchanters without Christopher before. It wasn't that I thought the rest of them only tolerated me because of Christopher—except that I'd sort of thought that the rest of them only tolerated me because of Christopher. But I told them what had happened, and Jason's eyes went wide and fascinated when I talked about the demons, and Elizabeth laughed at the part about Christopher's scarf, and Henrietta frowned and stared intently when I tried to describe what it was like inside the doors. I felt warm and happy and _liked._

The odd part was, that didn't make me miss Christopher any less. It made me miss him more.

Sunday lunch was worse. As Elizabeth said, between Millie and Christopher and Flavian, the castle was starting to seem more like a hospital. There wasn't any more of the previous day's events to tell, but nothing else seemed quite so interesting. And everyone was stepping carefully around Gabriel. Of the people who could usually be counted on to talk no matter what, Dr. Simonson was seeing to Flavian, and Bernard was oddly quiet. By the way he and Henrietta stole glances at each other when the other wasn't looking, and didn't look at each other otherwise, I guessed something unfinished had come up between them. I hoped they settled it soon. It was uncomfortable.

So when I saw, in the corner of my vision, one of the maids coming down the corridor with a covered tray, I asked to be excused. Gabriel just nodded. If no one was going to believe me when I said I was perfectly fine, I might as well use it to my advantage.

As soon as I was out of sight of the dining hall, I translocated up to the landing of the back staircase. It was only a few dozen feet, and it left me weaker then sprinting those feet would have done—but I could translocate after all. Who knew what else I could do?

And I got there a few seconds before the maid, which was why I'd done it. I was just getting my breath back when Erica came up the stairs. I was glad it was Erica; I'm not sure I'd have dared try this on, say, Imogen.

"Is that for Christopher?" I said. "Do you mind if I take it up? I'm going that way anyway."

Erica frowned. "You're just as good as he is, Master Conrad," she said. "You shouldn't be running around after him."

"So I've been told," I said apologetically. "But I'd like to. This once?"

"You're really worried about him, aren't you?" she said. "Don't be. Always lands on his feet, does Master Christopher." But she handed me the tray.

"Thank you," I said, giving her my most brilliant smile. It wasn't as brilliant as one of Christopher's, but I do what I can.

"Still practicing to be a valet, Grant?" said Christopher when I came into his room with the tray. I had been at the castle two weeks, and I was almost used to Christopher's dressing gowns. This one was bright red and had a design in gold on it that, when it wasn't half-covered by a blanket, might have been a phoenix. It looked soft.

"I need something to fall back on in case this whole enchanter thing doesn't work out," I said. Christopher laughed. Well, it had mostly been a joke. "How are you feeling?" I went on, holding the tray in one hand and starting to clear things off the top of his bureau so I could set it down.

"Weak," Christopher complained. "Why is ordinary healing so slow? If I'd died I'd be in the pink of health by now." He wiggled his toes under the blanket. "I wonder, if Dr. Simonson had had to cut any of them off, would they be back in the next life?"

I snorted. "Now there's an experiment you could try," I said. "Do you think you could persuade Gabriel to go along, in the spirit of scientific inquiry? You chop off your toes, he puts out an eye . . ." My hand fell on something sticky, and I jerked it away. It was Master Dodd's heart, still transfixed with Flavian's penknife. "Christopher, why do you still have this?"

Christopher's laughter stopped as suddenly as if I'd turned off a tap. I was nearly sorry I'd asked—I like Christopher's laugh. "What do you know about ritual hunts?" he said.

I set down the tray and leaned against the wall. "That I never want to do one again."

"Right. Well, the reason you do a ritual hunt is to lay claim to a hunting ground, and establish its boundaries. That," he said, nodding at the grisly lump on his bureau, "is the key to Master Dodd's hunting ground—my hunting ground, now. I could hardly leave it behind."

"So why not turn it over to Gabriel?" I said.

"Gabriel once told me," said Christopher, "by way of refusing to save Millie from getting killed by her priestesses, incidentally—that it didn't matter what happened in Series Ten, since they were all savages there anyway. Now, his outlook has broadened somewhat since then . . . but he isn't the right person to have charge of the Tibetan underworld."

"And you are?" I said. "I don't think dying frequently is actually a qualification."

"Well—maybe not," said Christopher thoughtfully. "But leave it for now, Grant, all right?"

"All right," I said after a moment. I certainly didn't want to touch it again. And I didn't work for Gabriel yet.

I handed Christopher the mug of chocolate and sat down on his bed. "You seem fine to me," I said. "I think you just like having an excuse to lie in all day."

"Well," said Christopher. He sipped his chocolate, and put his free arm around me. "There is that."

I snuggled back against him. His dressing gown _was_ soft. I closed my eyes and breathed in—chocolate, and fresh linen, and some sort of roast from the tray, and Christopher—the best smell in any world. I heard the soft sound of the mug being set down. "So," said Christopher. "What did Flavian say about me, that you're beginning to think he was right about?"

Introduce Christopher to the Prime Minister, and he'll have forgotten her name the next minute, but this— _I_ hadn't remembered what I'd said, aside from a lot of shouting. "I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I shouldn't have said that, any of it. I didn't mean it."

Christopher didn't say anything, but he put forth such a strong sense of _waiting_ that I had to go on. I don't think it was magic. I think it was just Christopher. "It wasn't—it wasn't anything, really. Just, he was worried about me. Being with you."

" _He_ was worried!" said Christopher. "We were all frantic about you being with him—with complete justification, I might add. I tried to warn you. The man has a jinx."

"Not like that. Like _this._ " I put my hand over his, and traced his fingers, for emphasis. "He thinks you're trifling with my tender boyish feelings."

"Ah," said Christopher, very neutrally. His arm tightened around me, and my shoulder where the firebird had caught it the day before gave a twinge, and I squirmed.

"Come on, Christopher, you're not—" then revelation hit, dizzying as a lungful of mountain air. "You _are._ You're actually afraid I'm going to tell you to go to hell, because of some _stupid_ thing Flavian said."

Christopher's arm loosened, and I could feel him relax all along my back. He rested his chin on top of my head. "Don't be ridiculous," he said into my hair.

"Your last boyfriend must have been a real sweetheart," I said.

"My what?" said Christopher.

"Never mind," I said. The same languages are spoken across the Related Worlds, but concepts don't always translate. I twisted around so I could get at Christopher's mouth. There was a smudge of chocolate in one corner of it, and his lips were cracked and peeling from the cold the day before, and very red. I kissed them carefully. He made a small sound in the back of his throat, and ran his amazing fingers over the line of my jaw, and down my neck.

Whatever you called this, I liked it.


	7. Henrietta

Chrestomanci Castle has lots of defenses. There's a solid wall around the grounds, with a very strong spell on it. There's a rubbery sort of spell that stops you spirit-traveling—that's had to be strengthened and repaired a lot since Christopher came to the castle, I've heard—and there are fifteen fearsome curses on the pentagram in the main hall. After the events of the day before, Gabriel and Mordecai spent several hours cobbling together something that would stop anyone getting in or out Meg's way. There are the damping spells all over to disrupt any big destructive workings, and spells like sensitive hairs that feel any magic being done at all.

But somehow nobody's ever set up any spells against a rope of knotted bed-sheets tossed out the window. So when I dropped to the lawn on Sunday night, there was no one to hear me softly cursing the bruises on my knees as I sat getting used to the dark, and nothing to stop me going where I wanted to go.

I wondered why we'd never tried going to the ruin in the dark. It was much easier, when I couldn't see. The smells around me still shifted confusingly, and the path under my feet was dirt one moment, and grass or gravel the next. But I told myself firmly that however much the grounds shuffled me around, the garden in the ruin wasn't moving. It couldn't; it was the center of the world. I ignored my surroundings and headed towards that.

So I didn't notice the person standing by the ruined wall until I was nearly on top of him. I almost translocated straight back to my room in a panic.

"I guess I can see why you're leaving," said Bernard softly. Mud caked his carpet slippers and the bottoms of his pajamas, his coat was buttoned wrong, and his hair stood up in even more directions than usual. I wanted to reach out and smooth away the unhappiness spoiling the clear, blunt lines of his face. "But couldn't you have said goodbye to us first? Did you think we would stop you?"

I blinked at him for a few seconds, trying to make sense of what he'd said. Then I got it. "Oh! You think I'm running off to join the Order!"

It was his turn to blink at me. "Aren't you? It sounded like a pretty good deal."

"Would you have gone?" I said. "If Meg had asked you?"

"Give me a comfortable bed and a good library and let me know where my next meal is coming from," Bernard laughed. "But that's me. What about you?"

I shrugged. "The worlds are wide," I said. "Someday I'll do something—I don't know what yet. Not stay at the castle for the rest of my life, that's for sure. But Meg—for someone who doesn't answer to anyone and goes where she will, she bends even less than Gabriel. I don't want to be like _that_."

"So what are you doing?" said Bernard.

"I'm on an errand for Christopher," I said. I took out the thing that I had in my pocket—even wrapped in two handkerchiefs, it was sticky to the touch and smelled of pine sap and burning. "He told me to do something with this. It's Master Dodd's heart."

Bernard made a face and recoiled. "What does he want you to do with it?"

"No," I laughed, "those were his instructions: 'Do something with this, Henrietta; I don't think it looks very decorative on top of my bureau.'"

"Huh," said Bernard. "If he didn't want it, why not give it to Gabriel?"

"Because. It isn't Chrestomanci business. It's Bardo business, and that makes it _my_ legitimate business." I stared defiantly at Bernard, until I remembered: He'd always remembered I was from Tibet, and not some place over there in slanty-eyed land. He'd taken my warning about setting foot on Gang Rinpoche seriously, even if he did think religion was nonsense. He'd dragged me out of the way of horses. He thought I was amazing. "But you can help, if you want," I said.

We climbed the great staircase together—by touch, in the dark—and I held on to Bernard when he started to wobble. I let him lead when we got to the garden. He was better at that odd spirally navigation than me, even if spring did make him sneeze. And soon we stood on-and-not-on the peak of Gang Rinpoche again. I unwrapped Master Dodd's heart, and pulled out the knife.

"Bdud," I called. "Master of the demons of earth and sky, fire and water. Walker in space, lord of the lower world. Come to me."

He didn't do anything as ordinary as arriving. He was just there. He was missing his tall hat. Last time I'd seen him he was a small man, and now he was enormous. Beside him, the other demons clustered around—the nagas with their knives, even the great shaggy giants—looked like flies buzzing around a horse. I was grateful for Bernard, solid at my back.

"What do you want with me, White Priest?" said Master Dodd.

I couldn't deny the title. "I have something that once belonged to you," I told him. "I might give it back, if you answer me honestly."

"Ask," he said.

"What do you want with England?" I said.

"A thousand years ago," he said, "a priest and a lama flew to the peak of Gang Rinpoche."

"Everyone knows that," I said. "The troubles began when they started fighting."

"Our troubles began before that," said Master Dodd. "They banished us from the middle world! We could no longer hunt the children of Tibet!" He bared his teeth at me. "Your family found refuge in England. Why shouldn't mine? It is a deserted place, after all."

"I suppose savages like me hardly count," said Bernard.

I wished he hadn't drawn Master Dodd's attention. The demon rolled his eyes at Bernard. "You speak of prey, little enchanter. I speak of hunters."

"The difference isn't always that great. Remember? Christopher took the lower world away from you. But that wasn't all you were after—you were trying to claim England for your hunting ground, to move your lower world into line with the great forest." I held out his heart. "It was the great forest that Conrad smelled on your doors, wasn't it?"

"My heart!" he cried. "Give it to me!"

The heart burned in my hands, and felt so heavy I couldn't hold it. It tried to flow away like water, to vanish like the wind. I held onto it with all my strength, mine and Bernard's. "You can have it," I said, "if you relinquish all your claims to England for a thousand years. Swear!"

"Very well. I swear," he said, and I let go. The heart fell, and so did Master Dodd, and all of them, the nagas and the giants and the demons flying on their drums, down into the lower world.

"Do you really think they would have been able to keep snaring children, if you'd just kept the heart?" said Bernard, when they were gone.

I shrugged. "Better safe," I said. "In any case, the lower world is theirs. I had no more business holding onto it than Christopher did."

"So," said Bernard. "Let's go." He led the way, turning back into phase, into winter. We trudged through snowdrifts until they gave way to summer. Not an English summer; the air was too dry, and heavy with jasmine.

"You're not allergic to jasmine, are you?" I said.

Bernard sniffed. "I don't think so," he said.

There was a low limestone bench. I wasn't sure if it had been there the moment before, but I sat down on it anyway. Bernard sat next to me. We were quiet for a while. I'm not a fast talker, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.

"You knew exactly what you were doing, when you offered to owe Meg a favor, didn't you?" I said finally.

"It was the only thing I could think of, to help Christopher and Conrad and Flavian," he said. "I realize it was a bit stupid."

"Not unless caring about people is stupid," I said. "And I don't think it is. Not admitting you care can be a little stupid, maybe. But I've never claimed to be a genius."

Bernard said, "Well, _I_ think you're—" but I didn't let him finish. I didn't really need to hear it, and I'm better at doing than talking, anyway. I put my arms around his neck and drew his face down, and opened my mouth against his. It was strange and slippery and messy, but on the whole I thought I liked it. One of Bernard's hands traced figures on my back—Greek letters or Hebrew letters, I didn't care. There we were, alone in the garden at the center of the world. Why shouldn't we find out what we could get?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who have read _The Pinhoe Egg_ will know what Master Dodd meant when he called England deserted. Henrietta and Bernard haven't, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Please bear in mind that Henrietta's Tibet is not quite our Tibet--alternate worlds and all that. That being said, feel free to correct my ignorance as much as you like.


End file.
